Assassin's Rise (12 page)

“Tomorrow! Fill up the
cart! We can’t dig anymore, Roland. What if we strike the reef ...
and never mind tomorrow! By tonight the whole thing will be exposed
as the dirt dries out!”

“I know. Let’s just
hope the guards does not come by and inspect tonight. And we can’t
escape without Andros and Dragon’s help. They are essential to the
plan.”

“Essential? What do you
think will happen if the guards find out they’d helped us? I want
to escape just as much as you do, old horse, but I don’t want to
carry their deaths on my shoulders.” Jeklor was stone-faced, the
usual mirth shining in his eyes replaced by distaste. Roland did
not mind. In fact, he was glad for the change in Jeklor’s
expression. “I have that part covered,” said Roland kindly. “Trust
me. Now let’s fill this cart.”

“With what?” snapped
Jeklor. He wanted to trust Roland, but he was running out of
patience. He seemed to have forgotten that it was his idea to
accompany Roland in the first place.

“If the guards find out
we’re hiding the reef we are dead anyway. Let’s dig in the floor,
the side of the tunnel ... anywhere so long as we can fill the cart
with dirt.”

As Roland said it, he
hammered his pickaxe into the tunnel floor between his legs,
scooped the loose dirt up with the wooden shovel and dropped it
into the empty cart. Jeklor opened his mouth but then bit his words
back. He swung his pickaxe into the side of the tunnel, making sure
that he kept well clear of the silver reef.

They worked in silence,
only the dull thuds of iron cleaving earth sounding down the tunnel
and into the cavern, and the occasional grunt as a stubborn, loose
rock was lifted out of the way. Filling the cart took a long time,
as they had to pick their digging spots with care. Roland was
finally satisfied that the cart was completely filled, and he
tugged on the rope trailing back into the cavern. The rope grew
taut and the cart started moving, disappearing into the dark as it
passed by the flickering candle light.

Roland wrung his hands.
“Sorry, Jeklor, but you will have to continue on your own from now
on – we’ll still need enough dirt to fill one cart. Keep the sounds
going while I’m busy.”

“Right,” said Jeklor,
swinging his pickaxe at random spots.

*

Andros and Dragon
pushed the empty cart up the tunnel, eagerly looking forward to the
promised food. Not a day had passed by without the fierce youth
handing them bread.

Andros could feel his
strength returning bit by bit, and Dragon’s face had a bit more
life to it. He looked at Dragon and smiled, wondering how old the
moon-faced man really was. Andros was entering his tenth year at
the mine, and he was proud of it. A man rarely lasted more than
three or four. Since the start he had kept his head down, doing his
work without complaining, taking his punishment with a smile. He
had dreamed – oh, how he had dreamed of freedom ... of taking
revenge – but he had soon realised that clinging to life, no matter
how degrading it was, was the only way forward. He was only a bit
over forty summers (he could not remember his true age), but he had
an idea of how old he appeared to the other prisoners. His hair had
fallen out in clumps, he had lost all his teeth within the first
two years, and his body was a mere whisper of his former self.

He recognised the same
hope he had used to harbour inside the dark-haired youth. The time
would come when that feverent faith burning in his eyes would turn
to dull despair; the realisation that drawing another breath was
enough gained; but Andros would not be the one to tell him that. As
long as the youth remained hopeful (however misplaced it was), he
and Dragon would be fed.

Dragon stumbled and
Andros reached out, helping the man upright. The day Dragon had
arrived at the mine, he had put up such a scene, crying and
shouting and biting and spitting, that the guards had tied him down
and cut his tongue out. He only had a little stump left in the back
of his mouth, and the sounds he made when trying to speak was
guttural noises, sounding like a man choking in too much wine.
Andros had never found out his real name, for Dragon was slow
minded, struggling to communicate the most basic of things. Hunger
and thirst meant that he screwed his face up and rocked back and
forth. At times Andros hated Dragon for being such a helpless
partner, but the honest adoration his face showed whenever Andros
helped him was usually enough to fill him with guilt. Why he had
named him ‘Dragon’ in the first place he could not remember; it was
probably a cruel joke from his side.

Andros halted sharply
as he saw the state at the end of the tunnel. Shallow holes covered
the floor and sides, and the dark-haired youth stood with a wooden
board in his hands, his piercing eyes boring into him and
Dragon.

Dragon opened his mouth
and gave dry heaves – Andros took it meant he was laughing at the
haphazard digging.

He and Dragon pushed
the cart to the end of the tunnel, Andros avoiding looking into
Roland’s eyes. The fair-haired one was ignoring them, seeming to
attack the tunnel in every-which-way with his pickaxe. Something
had changed in the atmosphere, and Andros was sure it meant
trouble. He turned around and made to leave – not caring about the
food – but a surprisingly strong hand clamped on his shoulder and
swung him around.

Roland pushed his face
into Andros’s and started whispering, his eyes burning with
resolution. To Andros’s surprise Dragon was nodding along as Roland
spoke, his eyes shining just as brightly as Roland’s.

*

Roland watched the two
men disappearing down the tunnel and then he lifted the wooden
board over the empty cart. The poles accompanying the board he had
left back down in the tunnel; they had not progressed much further
since the roof had almost caved in, and he definitely did not
intend on digging any further from now on.

“Come a bit closer, I
need more room to move in,” he told Jeklor.

Jeklor went and stood
next to the cart, thumping his pickaxe repeatedly into the floor,
while Roland measured the width of the board against the cart,
drawing a line on the board with a small stone. He lowered the
board and placed it on the floor, lifting his pickaxe.

“I need to time my
blows with yours,” he said, eyeing Jeklor’s hand blurring up and
down through the air. Jeklor slowed down, the rhythmic thumps of
his pickaxe drowning out the sounds of Roland striking the board
along the line he had drawn. Three more times he struck before the
board split in two. Roland lifted one piece of the board and
dropped it into the cart where it got stuck halfway down. Roland
thumbed his fist down on the flat surface of the board, but it held
tight. The edges of the cart were constructed at an angle, the
opening far wider than the bottom. At the rope-end of the cart,
Roland forced the end of his pickaxe behind the bottommost plank
and started pulling. The iron nails holding the plank to the frame
screeched as he forced the plank away and he stopped.

“Dig as though your
life depends on it – for it does,” Roland said.

Jeklor did not need to
be told a second time and he hammered the pickaxe all around him
with all his might – he now had a good idea of what Roland was
planning.

With a final wrench
Roland pulled the plank away, convinced that the guards must have
heard the unusual sound, but no alarm was raised. He manoeuvred
himself through the hole and into the cart feet first, Jeklor
moving closer to him as the slack was taken up in the chain. He
completely disappeared inside the cart, and then wormed himself
forward again, reaching up with his hand and touching the rope
hanging above his head. He then crawled from the cart and stood up,
dusting his hands.

Not even the grime and
sweat could disguise the look of expectation mingled with fear on
Jeklor’s face. “Is there enough space for two?” he asked, the
pickaxe still blurring up and down.

“More than enough,”
grinned Roland. He hooked the curved end of his pickaxe around the
edge of the wooden board stuck inside the cart and lifted it out,
replacing it with the other piece of board laid next to him. Both
pieces fitted.

Roland took the shovel
and started throwing dirt on top of the stuck board, slowly filling
the cart. The board shifted a bit as it took on the extra weight,
but not by much.

“I wonder where they
dump the dirt outside?” said Jeklor as he watched Roland filling
the cart.

Roland did not answer
him. That was one thing he could not plan for.

T
he rope stretched out as it pulled
against the weight of the cart, fibres singing as it cut,
rock-hard, through the air, and then the cart started moving, the
small wooden wheels leaving clefts behind in the soil.

Candle light flickered
over the heap of earth that filled the cart, almost spilling over
the edges so full it was, the cart’s shadow silently following
behind on the tunnel wall.

A few guards milled
around in the cavern, keeping an eye on the three prisoners as they
strained turning a large, upright wooden wheel, each turn of the
wheel bringing the filled cart closer to the cavern. As the cart
rolled into the cavern, one of the prisoners let go of the wheel
and waited for the rope to slacken before he unhooked it from the
cart, while another urged a mule into position behind the cart.

A leather harness
covered the mule’s chest and shoulders. Two short ropes were
attached to the harness, ending in a hook similar to the one on the
rope now wrapped around the wooden wheel. The prisoner swung the
contraption over the mule’s head and back, and slipped the hook
through the iron ring connected to the cart. He slapped the mule on
the rump and the mule strained until motion carried the cart
forward, the mule’s hooves muffled by the sounds of banging and
clanging coming from the many tunnels. The mule knew his route
well, and he aimed for a tunnel where a guard was leaning against
his spear. The guard took the mule by its harness and led it into
the tunnel.

Andros and Dragon
watched as the cart disappeared, Dragon with a big, idiotic grin on
his face. Andros nudged him hard in the ribs to wipe the smile from
his face, and then he hooked the now free rope onto an empty cart.
Together they pushed the fresh cart back up the tunnel to replace
the transferred one, the rope snaking out behind them.

“It’s our turn now,
Dragon. We’ll have to be quick,” whispered Andros, sweating and
looking pale through his grime-streaked face.

*

The tunnel the guard
led the mule down was well lit, torches flaring brightly at regular
intervals. The surface was smooth and hard from years of hooves and
heavy carts rolling up and down the floor. The guard whistled a
nameless tune as he walked, the sound strangely amplified in the
hollowed stillness, the clopping of hooves echoing along the
walls.

On and on the tunnel
stretched, sometimes turning, sometimes sloping and finally the
guard emerged from a hole in the side of the mountain, the mule
snorting as it smelled fresh air.

Directly next to the
guard was a small mound of black ore waiting to be shipped, silver
glinting in the twilight sun – but he passed it by. Further on was
a wooden barracks, the laughter of drunken men sounding through the
windows, swords and spears carelessly left by the front door.

The guard passed it
by.

On the guard walked,
leading the mule by its harness, until he stopped by a small wooden
platform build at an angle on the edge of a deep ravine, the sound
of running water drifting up to him from the bottom. The guard
leaned over the edge, watching the river as it ran its course, and
then he stepped back and gave a sharp whistle.

The mule immediately
walked up and over the platform so that the cart was perched on
top, leaning a bit to the side. A heavy looking pole, twice the
length of a man, was connected to the platform on a swivel. The
guard lifted the pole and pushed it upwards, so that the cart
tipped over and onto its side, where it came to rest against a
sloping, anvil-shaped stone. He did this with apparent ease, and he
pushed the pole up even higher to make sure that the cart would be
completely emptied.

Satisfied, he dropped
the pole and the cart tipped back with a thud, empty, its contents
spilled down the ravine. He took the mule by its harness and aimed
for the mine, planning to stop by the barracks on his way there –
he could do with a drink first.

*

Hands groped along the
riverbank, searching for a hold. Fingers curled around root and
plant, and Roland and Jeklor coughed and spluttered as they dragged
themselves from the water and unto the soggy, muddy edge. They
rolled onto their backs, breath whistling from their sunken
chests.

They rested for a
moment, staring at the open sky, dragging in huge lungs full of
fresh air, the failing sunlight revealing great smiles on their
faces.

Jeklor lifted a
trembling hand, pointed at the wooden platform barely visible on
top of the almost vertical rock edge of the ravine and simply said,
“We made it.” He dropped his arm next to him, holding his hand
out.

Roland clasped Jeklor’s
hand, squeezing it, his voice hoarse as he said, “Thank you.”

Jeklor grunted. As they
had fallen from the cart, the river rushing up to them, the wooden
board that had hidden them underneath the loose earth had almost
decapitated Roland. Jeklor had kicked out with his free leg,
pushing the board away, resulting in him striking the water at an
awkward angle, breath exploding from his lungs. The chain tying
them together had immediately dragged them under the rushing water,
and if not for Roland’s heroic struggle keeping the winded Jeklor’s
head above water, they would have both drowned.